This invention relates to data storage devices including optical disks adapted for insertion into and removal from optical drives. Removable disks typically are housed in cartridges to reduce contamination and damage during storage and handling, and further to facilitate convenient yet accurate loading and removal of the disk into and out of the drive.
Prior art attempts to meet these requirements are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,394,700 to Edwards granted July 19, 1983. Edwards shows a mechanism for retaining a disk within a cartridge to prevent its rotation when not housed in a drive. Levers 72, each spring loaded by a coil spring 90, maintain the disk hub stationary in the cartridge. When the cartridge is loaded into a drive, release pins push levers 72, overcoming the force of coil springs 90 to release the disk for rotation.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,975,678 to Jacques et al granted Aug. 17, 1976, shows a cartridge having a top wall 42 and a bottom wall 41 connected by a hinge 43. Ribs 41a and 42a along the sides of the cartridge have angularly disposed confronting faces (see FIG. 9) that lock the cartridge top and bottom halves together until, when inserted into the drive, they are driven apart by a wedge element 46. Rollers 50 and 51 press against the cartridge top and bottom to reengage them as the cartridge is removed.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,412,260 to Stricklin et al granted Oct. 5, 1983, a cartridge receiver mechanism undergoes a prescribed combination of linear and pivotal movement in order to properly align a disk for engagement with the spindle housed in the drive.
While these references show attempts to protect a removable disk and guide it toward accurate engagement with a drive spindle, none of these attempts meets the objects of the present invention which are: to reduce cartridge loading to two motion components, one parallel to the disk plane and the other parallel to the disk rotational axis; to totally separate opposed sections of a cartridge from each other and from the disk during insertion, to eliminate the possibility of the cartridge of interfering with disk rotation; and to provide a means for positively locking the cartridge sections together when the cartridge is removed from the drive, but to allow separation of the cartridge sections, when loaded, in the direction parallel to the disk rotational axis.